Color correction and printing of nature pic.

[OmarB]

I am having a hard time color correcting and printing the attached picture. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have modest knowledge of Photoshop CS2. Here are the issues. Without any correction at all, the picture prints mostly ok but the snow on the mountain comes out really orange/reddish. So much that it almost blends into the mountain itself. The ideal print would have the mountain red/orange, and the snow mostly white with a slight orange/red tint, but you should be able to tell that it's snow. I have worked on it a bit and it looks ideal on the screen, but of course it prints nowhere near how it looks on the screen.

I understand that it's very hard to get on print what you see on screen sometimes, but it differs so much when it prints. I haven't had color issues this big with other pictures on the same computer/printer. Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

[bd-in-pdx]

Makes me wonder if your printer is managing its own colors or set to let Photoshop control the color? If the printer is managing the colors are you working in a color profile that perhaps the printer doesn't recognize? The printer could default to its standard color profile if Photoshop is telling it the color profile and it doesn't recognize it.

You can also over-lighten the snow with a curves or levels layer and let the printer tone it down during the print job. I used a curves adjustment layer for this pic and used Color Range to select the snow areas only on the adj. layer mask, then lightened a bit. This maintains the other colors in the print you do like while modifying only the snowy areas.

[OmarB]

Originally Posted by bd-in-pdx

Makes me wonder if your printer is managing its own colors or set to let Photoshop control the color? If the printer is managing the colors are you working in a color profile that perhaps the printer doesn't recognize? The printer could default to its standard color profile if Photoshop is telling it the color profile and it doesn't recognize it.

You can also over-lighten the snow with a curves or levels layer and let the printer tone it down during the print job. I used a curves adjustment layer for this pic and used Color Range to select the snow areas only on the adj. layer mask, then lightened a bit. This maintains the other colors in the print you do like while modifying only the snowy areas.

Thanks for the reply. I will check the printer/photoshop for color management settings. I think the over-lighten might do it though. Will let you know. Thanks!

[bd-in-pdx]

Good luck, it's a really nice print.

[0lBaldy]

OmarB, welcome to RetouchPRO! Nice to have you aboard and hope you enjoy.

1. I did levels on first picture using the Red, Blue, Green drop downs instead of RGB (while holding the Alt key select RED keep Alt key held down and moving the left slider till the mountain tips show then still holding the Alt key moved the right slider till the mountain tips showed repeat for the Green and Blue)..

2. A shadow on white usually is 50% gray .. I clicked on the shadow of the mountain while in levels with the center color picked(Gray) after the afore mentioned levels for the second picture

3. Third picture regular levels using the white color picker on the lightest part, Black on the darkest, Gray on the white shadow area, then move the center slider to the right till the picture was as is

The different level approaches created very different pictures for me that I think might print pretty good unless of course you wanted the muted all reddish pic like your sample

~~ One ~~ ~~Two ~~ ~~ Three ~~

[OmarB]

Originally Posted by 0lBaldy

OmarB, welcome to RetouchPRO! Nice to have you aboard and hope you enjoy.

1. I did levels on first picture using the Red, Blue, Green drop downs instead of RGB (while holding the Alt key select RED keep Alt key held down and moving the left slider till the mountain tips show then still holding the Alt key moved the right slider till the mountain tips showed repeat for the Green and Blue)..

2. A shadow on white usually is 50% gray .. I clicked on the shadow of the mountain while in levels with the center color picked(Gray) after the afore mentioned levels for the second picture

3. Third picture regular levels using the white color picker on the lightest part, Black on the darkest, Gray on the white shadow area, then move the center slider to the right till the picture was as is

The different level approaches created very different pictures for me that I think might print pretty good unless of course you wanted the muted all reddish pic like your sample

~~ One ~~ ~~Two ~~ ~~ Three ~~

Thanks so much! I will try all these methods today and see what looks best!
You guys are great...

[OmarB]

Originally Posted by bd-in-pdx

Good luck, it's a really nice print.

Thanks! Yes, this picture is beautiful. My friend went to Patagonia last year and he took hundreds of pics. We are printing them 24" by 36" on glossy/photo paper. We haven't had issues with any of the pics. They all come out gorgeous. This one is giving us fits though. I will try again today...

[Dave.Cox]

I decided to give this a try, and since this site is about learning, here is how I did it. Using the Histogram on the left you can see where the high lights are missing from the channel information. I added a levels adjustment layer to make the adjustment. I then adjusted each channel individually, pulling the white slider left to where the information curve starts up from the bottom. I watched the snow, assuming that snow should be white, as a reference for the adjustment. The photo and histogram on the right shows the result of the adjustment.

[OmarB]

Originally Posted by Dave.Cox

I decided to give this a try, and since this site is about learning, here is how I did it. Using the Histogram on the left you can see where the high lights are missing from the channel information. I added a levels adjustment layer to make the adjustment. I then adjusted each channel individually, pulling the white slider left to where the information curve starts up from the bottom. I watched the snow, assuming that snow should be white, as a reference for the adjustment. The photo and histogram on the right shows the result of the adjustment.

WOW! You guys are awesome. Thanks for all the help. I did some other adjustments, checked the printer and changed the settings of color management to photoshop. The picture improved dramatically but the snow is still the problem. The mountains are supposed to be more red than orange and the snow is not white white, it's white with a red tint. The picture was taken at sunrise so the sky is not as blue yet. I think I'm getting there though. You guys are the best. Thanks for all the knowledge. I'll continue adjusting and will let you know how it goes. I'm learning so much...

[Gary Richardson]

Why work if you don't have to.

A simple greypoint sample on the snow with a curves layer gives this ...... (good enough as a starting point).

[OmarB]

Originally Posted by Gary Richardson

Why work if you don't have to.

A simple greypoint sample on the snow with a curves layer gives this ...... (good enough as a starting point).

May I know the details of how you did this? This one seems to be dead on when it comes to the snow. White with just a tint of red! The other colors seem to be in line too. Thanks!

[DCobb]

I started with a 3rd party plugin to make the initial color correction (Kodak). From there it was some Hue/Sat. adjustments and a Shadow/Highlights adjustment with the colors being enhanced in the LAB color space. I finished with a slight Hi Pass sharpening.

dc

[Gary Richardson]

Originally Posted by OmarB

May I know the details of how you did this? This one seems to be dead on when it comes to the snow. White with just a tint of red! The other colors seem to be in line too. Thanks!

Open a Curves adjustment layer.

On the bottom right hand side of the Curves dialogue box there are 3 eyedroppers, click on the middle one (greypoint), then click on the snow area in the picture (I used one of the mid-tone areas).

Easy as that.

Sometimes the "auto" tools do as good a job as you need. If not, a little tweaking will often be all that's needed.

[OmarB]

Originally Posted by Gary Richardson

Open a Curves adjustment layer.

On the bottom right hand side of the Curves dialogue box there are 3 eyedroppers, click on the middle one (greypoint), then click on the snow area in the picture (I used one of the mid-tone areas).

Easy as that.

Sometimes the "auto" tools do as good a job as you need. If not, a little tweaking will often be all that's needed.

I'd like to thank everyone for their help! Gary Richardson specially! That trick took the picture to 90% of what I wanted. I am doing a couple more adjustments (too much green in the mountain) but the picture already prints a million times better. Thank you all very much, this place is great.

[Gary Richardson]

You're welcome Omar, always glad to help if we can.